Dr Rakib Akhtar is an interdisciplinary scholar with a research focus on technology-oriented urbanisation, infrastructure development and their interconnection with right-wing nationalism. His research interests sit at the intersection of Urban Geography, Political Economy and Development Studies. Currently, he is a Lecturer in Urban Planning at the University of Birmingham teaching across both campuses of the university in Birmingham and in Dubai. Prior to Birmingham, Rakib has been a Research Fellow in Healthy Cities and Built Environment at Oxford Brookes University where he inquired about the role of Health in the Smart Cities of India. Rakib was also a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Anglia Ruskin University examining the relationship between processes of Peri-urbanisation and Climate Change in India. Rakib is a chartered architect and town planner with extensive experience in India and the Middle-East and the UK.

Rakib’s DPhil at the University of Oxford analysed the politics of the delivery of smart city projects in India. It looked at how actors of neoliberalism and right-wing Hindu religious nationalism (or Hindutva), come together in helping each other take root through the delivery of an urbanisation project. The research was the outcome of extensive fieldwork in the affected villages as well in the Special Purpose Vehicle designed to deliver the project. This is in the process of being published as a monograph by the Cambridge University Press. Rakib co-edited an upcoming book titled “COVID-19 in South Asia: Impact on Society, Economics and Politics” to be published by Routledge.

Qualifications:

• DPhil in International Development, University of Oxford
• MSc in International Planning, Bartlett School of Planning, University College London (UCL)
• Bachelor of Architecture, Panjab University, India
• Bachelor in Building Sciences & Technology, Panjab University, 2008

Memberships:

• Member, Royal Town Planning Institute, United Kingdom
• Licensed Architect, Council of Architecture, India

• Smart urbanism (role of technology in urban planning)
• Neoliberalism, right-wing religious nationalism and their overlaps.
• Periurbanisation and Climate Change

Akhtar, Rakib (2023): Protests, neoliberalism and right-wing populism amongst farmers in India. The Journal of Peasant Studies, DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2022.2096446

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2022.2096446?src=